Fans of Linda Howard will love Dangerous, the story of a driven female cop who teams up with an irresistible ex-con to bring a killer to justice—and discovers that breaking the rules is hotter on the wrong side of the law.

Chicago homicide detective Camille Martell will stop at nothing to track down “Angel,” a sexual predator who has already butchered two young victims—even after her off-the-books investigation leads to her suspension. But when her relentless attempts to contact Angel online puts her teenage neighbor in mortal danger, Camille’s worst fears are realized. Panicked and overwhelmed with guilt, Camille needs help—even if it comes from the one man she swore she’d do anything to forget.

After serving time for a trumped-up charge, private investigator Drago Nance doesn’t trust cops. Nothing will change that, not even the steamy weekend with Camille that burned itself into his memory. But with an innocent girl’s life at stake, Drago can’t ignore the need in Camille’s eyes, or the heated promise in her touch. He agrees to help—if she’s willing to play by his rules. He just never suspected that seducing his partner could be just as thrilling as chasing a madman.

Excerpt:

Frustration filled Camille Martell when she checked the list of people logged into the “come and get some” chat room, her nickname for the Chicago area dating site Meet ’n’ Greet, where she’d found Angel. The scum wasn’t there now. Obsessed with stopping the sexual predator who’d murdered at least two young women he’d seduced via the Internet, she’d been spending every waking hour away from the job hunting him on her home computer.

“Damn it! C’mon, you bastard, where are you? Show yourself!”

As if her demand zapped him through the ether, his avatar—a dark angel holding a sword—appeared.

“Yes!” Her adrenaline surged, and she quickly logged in as Morrigan, the old college photo identifying her as a twenty-one-year-old redhead. Exactly Angel’s type. He didn’t have a clue she was a cop.

Max nudged her leg and whistled through his nose.

Patting the dog’s big, scruffy body, she absently murmured, “Good boy,” as she tensed watching the parade of messages scroll up her screen.

BigMan: anyone wanna talk with me will show photo

Cougar: let’s see your photo first—not your face, BIG man!

hotgirl: camshows $10/10 minutes skype hotgirl69

Camille’s gaze flicked to the column of sign-ins. Angel was there but not interacting. She’d engaged him twice in the last two days. He’d been flirting carefully with her, like he had been testing her. He knew she was here. What was he waiting for?

She took a big breath. “C’mon, c’mon!”

Unable to wait for it, she took the lead.

Morrigan: Hey, Angel.

Angel: how’s it playing?

Morrigan: Bored ’n’ lonely

Angel: sorry

Morrigan: You can fix

Would he take the bait? Say he wanted to meet? Her pulse fluttered through her as she waited for his reply.

Cougar: woo-wee, angel, she’s comin’ on to ya

Angel: r u, M? what you wanna do with me?

She’d like to do all kinds of nasty things to a lowlife like him, but she’d settle for cuffing him and bringing him in. She thought about saying something sexual, but instinct told her to play it cool.

Morrigan: Just wanna talk... to start...

BigMan: let’s you ’n’ me talk, honey—skype name?

Morrigan: With Angel only! IM Morrigan22

Camille held her breath as she waited to see if Angel would use it.

Angel: gotta go ttyl

An instant message popped up on her screen, but it was from the guy who called himself BigMan. Camille ignored it. Her hands curled into fists, she sat staring at the monitor, willing Angel to IM her. If he got the mental message, he was ignoring it. Had she played it too cool? Should she have lured him in with the promise of something more than talk?

Another failed attempt. Her adrenaline crashed, deflating her once more.

“Damn it!”

She wanted to punch something.

Max was still sitting there, staring at her, and she realized she hadn’t fed him. Thankfully, she’d hired Sandy Kawecki, the teenage girl who lived next door, to walk Max after school, so he didn’t need to go out right away. She hadn’t meant to have a dog with her busy schedule, but the bruiser had been a pitiful sight on the street barking in terror at anything that went by. That had been barely a month ago. She’d tried to find his owner, and when that had proved impossible, then she’d thought she could find him a good home. He’d found hers instead. For the last few weeks after getting home from work, she’d gone directly to the computer, since she’d been unable to conduct her search at the office. Each time she wished Angel would IM, but wishing wasn’t going to make it happen, so she pushed away from her desk and headed for the kitchen, the dog following close on her heels.

“Hungry?”

His big brown eyes hopeful, Max whined and licked his chops.

Patting his side, she fetched a can and opened it while considering the irony of her being taken off the Chat Room Predator Case—the reason they gave her was she was “too emotionally focused” on it, and letting other cases slide. But that focus was what had connected her with the presumed killer, though she still hadn’t gotten him to go beyond chatting.

It might take some time, but she would find a way to meet him and arrest him and get him to trial, if it was the last thing she ever did.

Interview:

Today, we welcome Patricia Rosemoor to Musings and Ramblings. Let's all give a big Geeky welcome!

Hi, all -- I'm happy to be here.

Let's start with some writer specific questions before moving into the fun stuff. That way everyone can really get to know the person behind the writer. We will finish things off with a round of Think Fast. Ready for the interrogation to begin?

As long as I don't have to give away any state secrets :)

Writing Specific

Is your writing style more plotter or pantser?I'm known to be a plotter, but truthfully, I'm a bit of a panster, too, because, no matter how detailed my synopsis, I really don't know my characters and story until halfway through the book. That's when I start frantically reshaping what I've already written.

How involved are you with Social Media and self-promotion?The publishing landscape has changed so that authors don't have a choice. I long for the old days when my job was simply to write the best book I could, because promoting takes up so much time and energy. Even so, I really like Facebook. I do fun things like all those tests to see what character I would be in a movie or share photos of my garden as well as promote. I have a harder time doing that with Twitter. I get that I need to really develop my presence there, but I find it more difficult than FB. I do like Pinterest, which is new to me, but I don't yet know how effective it is to connect with readers. But I love finding things I can save with great photos and see what everyone else saves.

What do you like to do when you are not writing?I'm a gardener. And trained as a Master Gardener by U of I Extension to help newer gardeners with gardening problems. Of course I live in the north, which means I have to wait all winter until April to get my hands in soil again. But in the meantime, I'm going to take a garden club landscaping course for a 4th time -- I need to make some changes in my back yard because of the plants I lost to last winter -- and I will be a "teaching assistant" for the newbies at my table. So that will be my gardening for the winter. :)

How did you choose the genres you write in?

I fell in love with Gothic romances at the age of 12. Read men's action adventure and thrillers and mysteries when I was in college, discovered big romances while traveling in Europe in my early twenties. All of those elements pushed me to write "dangerous love" -- romantic suspense, romantic thrillers and paranormal or urban fantasy romantic suspense.

Is there any particular author or book that has influenced you or your writing?When I was 12, I read Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn and was hooked. An all time favorite thriller with just a hint of romance is Tami Hoag's Dark Horse. I love writing dark.

Fun Stuff

What was the last movie/concert/show that you saw?The Imitation Game. True story about the brilliant man who invented the first computer during WWII to break the German code that helped the Allies win the war.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?Mind-reading so I could guess what the "next big thing" in books would be :)

What was the name of the last book you read? A Better World, book 2 in the Brilliance Saga, written by Marcus Sakey, one of my former grad students who took my Suspense-Thriller Writing class.

You are going to be stranded on a deserted island and bring 3 luxury items. What would they be?My new Kindle Voyage -- loaded with books, of course. Lobster (or can I get that from the sea since I will be on an island....). And champagne.

What would we find in your refrigerator right now?I do an ethnic Christmas dinner, so in addition to the left over rack of pork, cranberries & sweet potatoes, I have pierogis, Polish sausage, sauerkraut and pumpernickel bread.

With 90 novels and more than seven million books in print, Patricia Rosemoor is fascinated with "dangerous love" – combining romance with danger. She has written various forms of romantic and paranormal romantic thrillers, even romantic horror, bringing a different mix of thrills and chills to her stories.

Patricia has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and two Reviewers Choice and two Career Achievement Awards from RT BOOKreviews, and in her other life, she teaches Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing, credit courses at Columbia College Chicago. Three of her Columbia grad students and two students from other venues are now published in novel-length fiction